But New Glasgow’s deputy mayor would rather talk about the gigantic steps the town has taken to move beyond those ugly personal and systemic incidents of racism and discrimination.

“Even though we’ve had a history, we’ve made huge, huge steps,” said Paris, 64, a lifelong New Glasgow resident. “What I’ve found in travelling around the province and the country to different conferences is that we are not unique in that regard of having racism and discrimination. Many communities deal with it, but the way we have dealt with it here in the town of New Glasgow, by being supportive and by being encouraging and being outspoken and communicating the message, those are all key elements in us being where we are today, and that is a much more inclusive town and county for all.”

New Glasgow’s history of racism and discrimination is recent and legendary.

Musician Scott Jones, 27, was stabbed Thanksgiving weekend outside the Acro Lounge & Eatery. Jones, who was left partially paralyzed, believes the stabbing was prompted by the fact he is openly gay.

In 1946, Viola Desmond refused to sit in the balcony designated for blacks in Roseland Theatre, instead taking a seat on the ground floor where only whites were allowed. Desmond was forcibly removed, arrested and eventually convicted of tax evasion. The provincial government apologized for the conviction in 2010 and Desmond was granted a posthumous pardon.

Paris, who came of age amid the racial upheaval of the 1960s, married a white woman and raised a family in New Glasgow, and he can personally attest to racial discrimination.

“When we started dating back in the late 60s, things weren’t good,” Paris said of the backlash against biracial relationships that he and his wife Carol endured.

“We have had a lot of experiences with our marriage and our children growing up. I come from a relatively large family, and many of us have a lot of stories, good and bad.

“Unfortunately, I had some close confrontations in the early days. But it’s more so the scars. When somebody looks you in the face and tells you they are not renting to you because a few of the tenants would not want to have you in their building, being a young person and to have somebody tell you that, it certainly hurts you, and you never forget it.

“I spend a lot of time talking in schools because of my experiences with racism and discrimination, and I tell them just that. There were times when I felt that I was shot, not killed, but badly hurt and scarred for life.”

But Paris chose to react to those early scars by doing something to try to change attitudes and to educate people about how racism and discrimination hurt. He found a willing partner in the Town of New Glasgow.

More than 20 years ago, Paris started the Run against Racism in New Glasgow with a few participants. Having evolved into the Marathon of Respect and Equality, it now draws hundreds of runners.

And in 2010, the town joined the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination, taking its cue from and borrowing from preliminary framework from Kings County, which was already on board.

The idea was for New Glasgow, a town of 9,500 with a visible minority population of about six per cent, to adopt 10 key coalition commitments.

Geralyn MacDonald, the town’s director of community development, said organizers were pleased to find out that the town was already doing quite well on many of the initiatives.

“This is a welcome and inclusive community. We looked at all 10 (commitments), we agreed to address all 10. Some of them we still have work to do, but some of them we are already doing. For example, to increase the vigilance against racism and discrimination within the local schools, we talk about the anti-bullying campaign. You look at Pride Week, the Nelson Mandela Day, the African Heritage Month, that’s all implemented within the town’s plan. The plan was developed by a race relations committee, presented to council in August, approved, and we launched it during Culture Days in September, a national event.”

Pictou County is home to about 45,000 people, and Paris and MacDonald would like to bring other county municipalities on board with the coalition commitments.

“We have to deal with the harms and the hurts that were done, but we have to move past that, and I, for one, think we have certainly moved well past that,” Paris said. “We’ve acknowledged it, we have done the work that needed to be done it and we did it in the right way.